Shattered Lives
by RelicWhite
Summary: We were people once. People with memories and pasts that were taken from our blackened souls. Here are our stories: the chains of Gil Nightray, Vincent Nightray, Sharon Rainsworth, Rufus Barma, Reim Lunettes and Xerxes Break.


_ Nothing. I can't think. My thoughts are scrambled and my memories lay in shredded ruins. I open my eyes. Nothing but blackness. I try to move, a rattle meets my ears. My wrist is chained. I know where I am, and I am afraid._

_ Ripping. I feel a wind. But there is no wind in this place of the damned. A light reaches my eyes and I see it: Abyss is breaking apart. The fabric of this dimension is tearing and I try to yell. No one is there to hear it. The hole grows larger and I attempt to escape with no avail. The chains of my sins are much too thick._

_ Breathe. I try to breathe but the air is being pulled from me. I realize I'm more afraid of this strange tare than of the broken toy box I've been pulled into. It's coming closer, and closer. Very soon it swallows the chain that binds me to Abyss, dragging me foreword. My eyes widen, before I am gone._

_ Alone. Hidden from the eyes of both worlds. No earth or Abyss can hold the scar of something once human. Time goes by. I lose track. I try to count the seconds. Minutes. Hours. Years. Alone in the darkness between the 2 worlds I hear screaming. I try to cover my ears. I try to pretend the despair isn't there. I deny the existence of that wretched broken place._

_ Madness. My mind is gone. I don't hate but I do not love. I find my thoughts running away by themselves. I long for tea. Why do I want tea? Did I like tea? Was I a tea drinker back when I was alive? For surely I am dead. My right eye has rotted away from what horrors I have seen. My other is twisted and distorted. Was I am author? I like stories very much. I wish I had a desk here. Or my old body with hands. It's been so long. Ravens don't have hands. Neither do desks. Funny how you need to have a hand to use one. Hm. How IS a Raven like a writing desk?_

_ Falling. One day I see my chance at escape. A small light peeks through from the place they call Abyss. I don't want to be alone anymore. I fall through this tiny hole by choice and land in a lake of dark water. Something splashes nearby, and attacks. I do not move. I do not think. It simply falls to crumbles and disappears. I wonder how I did that, but then again, I know. I denied its existence. It was never there._

_ Red. One day I see it from off in the distance. A single sparkle of scarlet on the face of a man I can tell should not be here. One eye, just like me. He is holding a mirror and some sort of chain. It has a mark on the end. A Pandora's mark, I recall from a memory I can't quite retrieve. I drift forward silently. He seems to know his way through here. I sense a seal on him. A complete seal. He must be another illegal, dragged here by his sins. But that's not right; he is with Pandora after all._

_ Xerxes. He sees me and grins madly. I like that grin. It's much like mine, if only I had a mouth. He introduces himself. I cannot reply, but he seems to know what I say. He seems to understand me. How is this possible? Then I realize the truth all at once: he is much like me. A sinner who's changed their ways. A man with undeniable power, but also judgment. A man on a mission, with a single red eye reflecting the blood we once shed. A man with who escaped Abyss, just like I would soon do. A man who's just a little bit mad._

_ Light. I make a contract on the mirror and feel a tug. I'm being pulled upward, and out. Out into the sunlight. I am a changed man from when I left no doubt. I'm not sure if I'm even a man anymore. I am a chain now, but as I look from this white haired mans shadow I know I'm doing the right thing. It's better to be a good monster than an evil human, I decide. The man turns to me, a sparkle in his one eye. He asks for my name. He tells me my purpose, to obtain the Will of Abyss. I grin as wildly as he once did, though how, I don't know. _

_ Laugh. I bow deeply, still grinning. I tip my hat with my nonexistent hands and look at him, eye to shining eye. My name? Well it's obvious isn't it. I'm a chain of its own kind. My power is new. Pandora has yet to hear of me, but soon they will all know my name. I despise the very thing they do. The Will of Abyss, that is. I suppose she's not all bad however. She did save my lost soul by ripping it from me. My purpose is to destroy everything from Abyss. How crazy for a chain, isn't it? I get to know this man more. This oddly dressed man in purple, whose hate is hidden deeply behind a mask of sugary treats and clownish smiles. I know his past, and he knows mine. I will fight with him, for his mission is mine. We are the same, we are one. Chain and contractor. He asks my name again, more politely. I give a mad laugh and straighten from my ghost of a bow. My name is Mad Hatter._

"M-mad Hatter…." Break mumbled quietly in his half sleep. His one eye opened up to the darkness of his room and he sighed. It was always that dream.

He threw his off blanket and got out of bed rubbing his eye. He wouldn't be sleeping any more tonight, his head was a rush of memories that weren't his. Every so often he'd get a night like this: where the madness of his chain would leak into his own mind. Nightmares and terrors would occur in the few days following. Keeping hold of his sanity he walked over to the wall mirror of his room and examined his ruffled hair. He looked himself up and down, counting each finger on both hands.

"Ah, see now? You're worrying on about nothing," Break said to himself. "You're human, you're sane and you're hands are fine. You have them. Mad Hatter is just giving you a hard time."

"Hehe then why are you talking to yourself?" Came Emily's voice from the shelf he had set the doll on. Break growled out an "Oh shut up," before leaning against the mirror for support. He hated having the memories of Mad Hatter. How was he supposed to tell his life apart from the chain's when the chain couldn't even keep track of his own?

"Half the time I feel as though we are the same…." Break whispered to himself, directed at Mad Hatter. He brushed his hair aside and was about to turn out the light when something caught his eye. It seemed as though for just one moment he caught a glitter of scarlet from the left side of his face, right where his empty socket should be. A single red sparkle, with a twisting black disfiguring to it. An eye of sorts…..the Hatter's eye. He jumped and approached the mirror once more. He touched the empty socket and was relieved to find his eye was still gone, well, in a way.

He laughed to himself and turned out the light before getting into his sleepless bed.

_How silly of me to think anything of that. _Thought Break to himself. _Must have been a trick of the light._


End file.
